About a year ago, Ned Colletti returned to Los Angeles from baseball’s winter meetings in Dallas feeling slightly embarrassed.

He knew things weren’t right with the Los Angeles Dodgers, that they weren’t operating the way a professional sports franchise should.

While other teams found the time and, more important, the money to treat their employees at the winter meetings to a posh dinner at a swanky joint, Colletti could do no such thing. Under previous owner Frank McCourt, the Dodgers couldn’t even take their scouts and executives to a meal because the team was under the financial death grip of bankruptcy. Colletti basically went to the meetings with nothing more than identification and lint in his pockets.

In the hotel lobby and bars, other general managers would say hello to Colletti and move on. They knew the Dodgers couldn’t spend any money, so they pretty much left Colletti and his team alone at their table.

A year later, that embarrassed feeling is gone and may never return.

Colletti was the belle of the ball at the meetings in Nashville, Tenn., last week. He took Dodger employees to a big dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse. So many other general managers were lining up to buy him drinks, it wouldn’t have been a shock to see filled glassware stacked four deep on his table. The seemingly bottomless pockets of new ownership group Guggenheim Baseball Management will do that for a guy.

Hours later on Sunday, the Dodgers pushed that number even farther north when they agreed to terms with South Korean lefty Ryu Hyun-jin for $36 million over six years. That deal came after L.A. posted a $25.7 million fee just to negotiate with Ryu.

The Dodgers are now the most expensive team in the history of professional athletics, and they now have the heaviest expectations they’ve ever had to carry in the rich history of their organization.

Their options for 2013: Win the World Series or completely fail.

“They might not want to come out and say that, of course,” one National League scout said, “but ownership has to be thinking that.”

The Dodgers have done too much too fast for this not to be the case. In less than five months the team has regained the trust of its fan base, traded for or signed for this season players with 15 combined All-Star Game appearances, raised payroll by approximately $138 million since the ownership change, brought on hatred by opposing fans and even executives, and turned their own fans from appreciative to expectant.

But this is what Guggenheim Baseball Management wanted. It wanted the Dodger brand to represent excellence, and while it hasn’t yet done that, it does now signal massive dollar amounts. Forget the Yankees of the West. The Dodgers have just catapulted into a completely different stratosphere when it comes to money, the likes of which the Yankees can only hope to match.

People can scream all they want about how the Dodgers “overpaid” for Ethier or Greinke or Ryu, but that doesn’t matter when the money is endless. Guggenheim Baseball Management operates as if it has a massive orange tree in its back yard (i.e., the team’s upcoming television deal) and someone has offered it a coconut (something it doesn’t have but desires, like pitching) for half the oranges on the tree. The Dodgers can pay that and won’t be hurt if that coconut is rotten; more oranges will grow and they’ll have more to spend.

The Dodgers don’t operate under the same rules as anyone else in baseball. Damn overpaying. Damn a luxury tax. Damn not winning a World Series for a lack of resources.

But while the Dodgers can ignore the monetary figures, fans don’t forget salaries, and they pin expectations directly to them. If Alex Rodriguez made $12 million to $15 million a season, his production would be acceptable, and most years it would be pretty good. But fans know what a player makes each season; the information is just a few Internet clicks away. If he doesn’t live up to that paycheck in their minds, he’s a bum.

Because of that, Dodger fans will expect the team to run away with the division and burn through the playoffs. Next summer and fall hold the team’s fate, but what is known now is that the Dodgers didn’t spend stupidly.

The lineup is good. The rotation and bullpen are good. Obviously those “goods” don’t add up to a championship, but any general manager in the game would like that as a starting point, and the Dodgers might not be done adding.

Times have changed for Ned Colletti and the Dodgers. Let the steaks sizzle and the drinks flow.